Public Speaking Course:

Get 'em in Fun

In
my public speaking course, we learn about how Sigmund Freud made some
interesting discoveries about people that are having fun.

He wrote:

"The most favorable condition for comic pleasure is a generally happy
disposition in which one is in the mood for laughter. In these happy states
almost everything seems funny to us. We laugh at the expectation of laughing,
at the appearance of the person presenting the comic material (sometimes
even before he [she] even begins), and finally, we laugh
at the recollection of having laughed."

This idea has been termed '"In fun" by people that study humorous
behavior in people. If you want your audience to laugh, they must
be "in fun". You, as the presenter, must be "in
fun". The emcee or program coordinator
must also be "in fun". The entire speaking engagement should be designed
to be "in fun".

Don't do anything to take your audience out of being "in
fun". Try not to speak about controversial subjects like religion or politics and don't make
any unfriendly comments to audience members. If a problem occurs which must be dealt with, find an
"in fun" way of doing so. Keeping in tune with your audience is
a part what you will learn in your public speaking course.

Dr. Charles Jarvis, a member of the Retired National Speakers Association
and one of the greatest humorists of all time, told me about a friend of
his who was an excellent public speaker, but lost his audience when he
made someone turn off a tape
recorder. He was so mean about the way he treated the person that the
"in fun" audience completely turned against him.

An "in fun" audience is more critical for the presenter who
is there to entertain, but the concept should be in the back of every speakers mind who seeks to practice what they learned in my
public
speaking course. Your material may be controversial by nature, but that doesn't mean that
you should go out of your way to do or say things that will take the audience further out of
"in fun".

Also, pay close attention to the entire program. One friend of mine
had to present funny material just after a passionate plea went out to
the audience to collect funds for starving babies. He came on stage
just after the teary-eyed audience had seen slides of emaciated children.

In this type of situation, DON'T start right in with your funny material. Start out gently with a sincere reference to what the
audience has just experienced. Skip most of your early speaking humor and get
right to your subject to ease the audience's transition to your more lighthearted topic.

How do you get the audience "in fun"? One time I had a ventriloquist
introduce me at a morning meeting to wake up everyone and get them
"in fun". You could pass out fun snacks to the audience or put
balloons on their chairs. Public announcements and agendas can be decorated with cartoon characters.
In my public speaking course will learn how to involve the audience and
get them "in fun" by using funny props. Do anything you can to be sure your audience knows that it's OK to laugh.